Compliance Using Metadata

Everybody talks about the data economy. Data is collected stored, processed and re-used. In the EU, the GDPR creates a framework with conditions (e.g. consent) for the processing of personal data. But there are also other legal provisions containing requirements and conditions for the processing of data. Even today, most of those are hard-coded into workflows or database schemes, if at all. Data lakes are polluted with unusable data because nobody knows about usage rights or data quality. The approach presented here makes the data lake intelligent. It remembers usage limitations and promises made to the data subject or the contractual partner. Data can be used as risk can be assessed. Such a system easily reacts on new requirements. If processing is recorded back into the data lake, the recording of this information allows to prove compliance. This can be shown to authorities on demand as an audit trail. The concept is best exemplified by the SPECIAL project https://specialprivacy.eu (Scalable Policy-aware Linked Data Architecture For PrivacyPrivacy, TransparencyTransparency and ComplianceCompliance). SPECIAL has several use cases, but the basic framework is applicable beyond those cases

Culture and e-commerce: An exploration of the perceptions and attitudes of Egyptian internet users

This paper examines the perceptions and attitudes that Egyptian users hold towards electronic shopping sites. Internet sites are globally available, opening up huge potential markets for online retailers. However, it remains unclear whether sites designed for the US or European markets will be acceptable in other cultures. This paper describes an exploratory card sorting study conducted with Egyptian consumers. The study was designed to examine the e-commerce interface features that are most salient to this user group and to explore how these relate to user intentions to engage in internet shopping. The results support the role of site familiarity in predicting purchase intentions within this cultural setting

Appraising the impact and role of platform models and Government as a Platform (GaaP) in UK Government public service reform: towards a Platform Assessment Framework (PAF)

The concept of “Government as a Platform” (GaaP) (O'Reilly, 2009) is coined frequently, but interpreted inconsistently: views of GaaP as being solely about technology and the building of technical components ignore GaaP's radical and disruptive embrace of a new economic and organisational model with the potential to improve the way Government operates – helping resolve the binary political debate about centralised versus localised models of public service delivery. We offer a structured approach to the application of the platforms that underpin GaaP, encompassing not only their technical architecture, but also the other essential aspects of market dynamics and organisational form. Based on a review of information systems platforms literature, we develop a Platform Appraisal Framework (PAF) incorporating the various dimensions that characterise business models based on digital platforms. We propose this PAF as a general contribution to the strategy and audit of platform initiatives and more specifically as an assessment framework to provide consistency of thinking in GaaP initiatives. We demonstrate the utility of our PAF by applying it to UK Government platform initiatives over two distinct periods, 1999–2010 and 2010 to the present day, drawing practical conclusions concerning implementation of platforms within the unique and complex environment of the public sector.Non

Informational privacy and security amid growing activities on electronic platforms in Nigeria: A case for data protection law

Data protection is a fundamental approach created to provide security and protection over information that are personal to individuals and are capable of identifying or leading towards the identification of individuals. Informational privacy in this context connotes the protection accorded to individuals in the processing, storage and dissemination of private information. Put differently, it suggests the misuse or unwanted use of private information. This mechanism is extremely crucial to Nigeria in today’s growing trends in information and communication technology. Essentially, this paper seeks to re-echo and underpin the importance of adopting a formidable regulation(s) towards the way and manner personal information of people are being processed, stored and disseminated. This is having regards to Nigeria’s growing interests in electronic approach to citizen’s identity management, education, business and social activities, and governance at all levels. This paper further answers questions on how porous Nigeria has become in the overall management of people’s personal information compared to other countries with effective data protection regulations. It also highlights the importance of a data protection regulation to the nation’s economy. Furthermore, unprotected use of personal information on internet has prompted another side of reservation about right to privacy. This paper equally looks at how data protection legislation will advance the right to privacy in the use of internet and information technology.Keywords: Personal Data, Human Right, Privacy, Information Technolog

An exploration of understandings of development and of wellbeing in a rural hill community of far west Nepal

This ethnographic case study explores understandings of international and local development, and of personal and community wellbeing, in a rural mixed-caste community of Far West Nepal. Taking an ethnographic, interpretive, discourse-oriented and dialogic approach, the thesis uses data collected during eight months of fieldwork, through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and documentary analysis. The case study community includes three main sites; village, school and administrative/’bazaar’ area. Seven individuals and two events are explored as bounded yet interrelated ‘embedded cases’ (Stake, 2006), their foci informed by a life history approach. Arguing that development and wellbeing are social constructs and relational processes, the thesis draws on theories of Perri 6 (2012) and Zittoun et al (2003) to explore the interplay of institutional structures and human agency in shaping understandings of development and of wellbeing. This involves considering: the community’s most prominent institutions, the school and the Hindu religion; and recent political changes and globalisation processes. My exploration reveals a close connection between understandings of development and of personal wellbeing, and shows the mediating role of multiple identities, including mine, in shaping these understandings. The thesis argues that key to how development is carried out, and the wellbeing of individuals and communities promoted, is the tendency for understandings of development and personal wellbeing to be concomitant with ideas for community wellbeing only amongst individuals whose personal wellbeing is dependent upon that of their community. Literature on wellbeing in developing countries usually considers wellbeing in terms of its capacity to inform development interventions, the need for the latter going unquestioned. This thesis contends that wellbeing should be explored not merely as a development criterion but in its own right, potentially leading to a positive shift in attitudes and approaches to development, to the benefit of communities and the individuals who comprise them

Business modelling for a digital compliance platform: taking stock and looking forward : (D3.2.1 Desk study and interviews)

This study consists of a desk study on business models related to Ag data platforms and stakeholder consultation through interviews and stakeholder workshops (information on the interviews can be found in the Section References). An Ag data platform is interpreted as an IT-based interorganisational arrangement dealing with the collection, storage, exchange and use of Ag data. The scope of the desk study is limited to Ag data platforms with publicly available information on their key features. 8 | Wageningen Economic Research Report 2017-014 The objective of this study is to examine main types of business models that are used for developing Ag data platforms in agrifood chains and identify viable options that can be used for future development of the compliance platform envisaged by FarmDigital. More specifically, the research intends to provide answers to the following questions: What types of business models are being used for Ag data platforms? What features characterise the current landscape of Ag data platforms? What are the analogs and antilogs of the compliance platform envisaged by FarmDigital? What are the challenges and enabling options for future development of a compliance platform

Complex Adaptive Systems & Urban Morphogenesis:

This thesis looks at how cities operate as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). It focuses on how certain characteristics of urban form can support an urban environment's capacity to self-organize, enabling emergent features to appear that, while unplanned, remain highly functional. The research is predicated on the notion that CAS processes operate across diverse domains: that they are ‘generalized' or ‘universal'. The goal of the dissertation is then to determine how such generalized principles might ‘play out' within the urban fabric. The main thrust of the work is to unpack how elements of the urban fabric might be considered as elements of a complex system and then identify how one might design these elements in a more deliberate manner, such that they hold a greater embedded capacity to respond to changing urban forces. The research is further predicated on the notion that, while such responses are both imbricated with, and stewarded by human actors, the specificities of the material characteristics themselves matter. Some forms of material environments hold greater intrinsic physical capacities (or affordances) to enact the kinds of dynamic processes observed in complex systems than others (and can, therefore, be designed with these affordances in mind). The primary research question is thus:   What physical and morphological conditions need to be in place within an urban environment in order for Complex Adaptive Systems dynamics arise - such that the physical components (or ‘building blocks') of the urban environment have an enhanced capacity to discover functional configurations in space and time as a response to unfolding contextual conditions?   To answer this question, the dissertation unfolds in a series of parts. It begins by attempting to distill the fundamental dynamics of a Complex Adaptive System. It does so by means of an extensive literature review that examines a variety of highly cited ‘defining principles' or ‘key attributes' of CAS. These are cross-referenced so as to extract common features and distilled down into six major principles that are considered as the generalized features of any complex system, regardless of domain. In addition, this section considers previous urban research that engages complexity principles in order to better position the distinctive perspective of this thesis. This rests primarily on the dissertation's focus on complex urban processes that occur by means of materially enabled in situ processes. Such processes have, it is argued, remained largely under-theorized. The opening section presents introductory examples of what might be meant by a ‘materially enabling' environment.   The core section of the research then undertakes a more detailed unpacking of how complex processes can be understood as having a morphological dimension. This section begins by discussing, in broad terms, the potential ‘phase space' of a physical environment and how this can be expanded or limited according to a variety of factors. Drawing insights from related inquiries in the field of Evolutionary Economic Geography, the research argues that, while emergent capacity is often explored in social, economic, or political terms, it is under-theorized in terms of the concrete physical sub-strata that can also act to ‘carry' or ‘moor' CAS dynamics. This theme is advanced in the next article, where a general framework for speaking about CAS within urban environments is introduced. This framework borrows from the terms for ‘imageability' that were popularized by Kevin Lynch: paths, edges, districts, landmarks, and nodes. These terms are typically associated with physical or ‘object-like features' of the urban environment – that is to say, their image. The terminology is then co-opted such that it makes reference not simply to physical attributes, but rather to the complex processes these attributes enable. To advance this argument, the article contrasts the static and ‘imageable' qualities of New Urbanism projects with the ‘unfolding' and dynamic qualities of complex systems - critiquing NU proponents as failing to appreciate the underlying forces that generate the environments they wish to emulate. Following this, the efficacy of the re-purposed ‘Lynchian' framework is tested using the case study of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. Here, specific elements of the Bazaar's urban fabric are positioned as holding material agency that enables particular emergent spatial phenomena to manifest. In addition, comparisons are drawn between physical dynamics unfolding within the Bazaar's morphological setting (leading to emergent merchant districts) and parallel dynamics explored within Evolutionary Economic Geography).   The last section of the research extends this research to consider digitally augmented urban elements that hold an enhanced ability to receive and convey information. A series of speculative thought-experiments highlight how augmented urban entities could employ CAS dynamics to ‘solve for' different kinds of urban optimization scenarios, leading these material entities to self-organize (with their users) and discover fit regimes. The final paper flips the perspective, considering how, not only material agency, but also human agency is being augmented by new information processing technologies (smartphones), and how this can lead to new dances of agency that in turn generate novel emergent outcomes.   The dissertation is based on a compilation of articles that have, for the most part, been published in academic journals and all the research has been presented at peer-reviewed academic conferences. An introduction, conclusion, and explanatory transitions between sections are provided in order to clarify the narrative thread between the sections and the articles. Finally, a brief ‘coda' on the spatial dynamics afforded by Turkish Tea Gardens is offered

FAIR: Forwarding Accountability for Internet Reputability

This paper presents FAIR, a forwarding accountability mechanism that incentivizes ISPs to apply stricter security policies to their customers. The Autonomous System (AS) of the receiver specifies a traffic profile that the sender AS must adhere to. Transit ASes on the path mark packets. In case of traffic profile violations, the marked packets are used as a proof of misbehavior. FAIR introduces low bandwidth overhead and requires no per-packet and no per-flow state for forwarding. We describe integration with IP and demonstrate a software switch running on commodity hardware that can switch packets at a line rate of 120 Gbps, and can forward 140M minimum-sized packets per second, limited by the hardware I/O subsystem. Moreover, this paper proposes a "suspicious bit" for packet headers - an application that builds on top of FAIR's proofs of misbehavior and flags packets to warn other entities in the network.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure

Crosslocations : looking for somewhere in particular across the Mediterranean

This is a book based on the photography carried out during the Crosslocations project. It provides both a visual and textual outline of the idea of Crosslocations and an understanding of how the idea was researched and experienced in the field sites of the research project. It is an accessible and methodologically innovative method used to describe the results of Crosslocations.Non peer reviewe

Entangled lives: drug assemblages in Afghanistan's Badakhshan

This article, focussing on Badakhshan province in north-east Afghanistan, explores the lifeworld of drugs and their entangled connections with people, places and things. It follows the journeys of drugs from the farmers' fields, through their various stages of transportation, storage and transformation, until they arrive at the border with Tajikistan. The paper draws upon the notion of a 'drugs assemblage' - the interweaving of plants, institutions, actors, processes and resources through which drug journeys are managed and facilitated. Drugs are embedded in a web of social relations that connect farmers, labourers, shopkeepers, smugglers, brokers and border guards. Opium is central to the production of a Braudelian geography, fragmented yet connected, of trading routes, enclaves, choke points and border crossings. Drugs have played a role in transforming the 'disturbed' landscape of this remote borderland region, into a centre of innovation and improvisation, in which alienation and precarity co-exist alongside accumulation and the pursuit of 'freedom'